Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, and the world

Aggiungi un Posto a Tavola – An Italian Musical

I’m a huge fan of musical theater, grew up singing along with The Music Man, Camelot and Oliver. The first show I saw on stage was You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, in what must have been a local or travelling production, in San Francisco, when we were on home leave in 1969. I knew all these shows by heart, and by now know (and have seen) many more – most recently, Spamalot.

Italy, of course, famously has opera, and, to a lesser extent operetta, but not much tradition of modern musical theater as we know it in the US and UK. Of the few musicals produced in Italy, most are translations of English-language standards. (We saw a very good production of Grease years ago, which I enjoyed, but found the translation inadequate and distracting.) But there are a few native Italian musicals, of which the most famous is Aggiungi un Posto a Tavola (“Add Another Place at the Table”), a fable set in a mountain village somewhere in Italy, whose parish priest suddenly starts hearing the voice of God… and I’ll explain the story as I (gradually) translate the songs.

Enrico and I saw it in Spanish in Madrid (also years ago), which was a little weird as some of the Italian puns didn’t work in Spanish (though they might have added Spanish puns that I didn’t get). It has been produced in English, but never really took off, it seems, which is a pity – it’s a great show and well deserves to be better known.

Since I first wrote this piece, one or two different productions have made their way onto DVDs, sold as extras with newspapers. You might be able to pick up copies on eBay.it.

Here is a translation of the opening (and closing) song. The others that I’ve translated so far are listed below. Videos of most of the show’s musical numbers, many from the original productions starrring Johnny Dorelli, are currently (Mar, 2009) available on YouTube. There are also YouTube clips from many regional/amateur productions all over Italy.

ritornello:

refrain:

Aggiungi un posto a tavola

Add another place at the table

che c’Ã¨ un amico in piÃ¹

[because] there’s a friend more

se sposti un po’ la seggiola

If you move your chair just a little

stai comodo anche tu,

You’ll be comfortable, too

gli amici a questo servono

Friends serve [this purpose]:

a stare in compagnia,

To be together [in company]

sorridi al nuovo ospite

Smile at the new guest

non farlo andare via

Don’t send him away

dividi il companatico*

Share your [food]

raddoppia l’allegria.

Redouble your happiness.

La porta Ã¨ sempre aperta

The door is always open

la luce sempre accesa.

The light is always on

Il fuoco Ã¨ sempre vivo

The fire is always lit

la mano sempre tesa.

The hand is always outstretched [in welcome]

E se qualcuno arriva

And if someone arrives

non chiedergli: chi sei?

don’t ask him: who are you?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no

E se qualcuno arriva

And if someone arrives

non chiedergli: che vuoi?

Don’t ask him: what do you want?

Ma corri verso lui

But run towards him

con la tua mano tesa.

With your hand outstretched

e corri verso lui

Run towards him

spalancagli un sorriso

Flinging wide a smile

e grida: “Evviva, evviva!**

And shout “Hooray!”

Evviva, evviva, evviva, evviva, evviva…

(ritornello)

(refrain)

e cosÃ¬, e cosÃ¬, e cosÃ¬, e cosÃ¬ cosÃ¬ sia…

And so, so, so… so be it!

* Companatico – literally “what you eat/have with your bread” ** Evviva – “long live!” or “up with!” or “hurray for!” – is often abbreviated VV (when written by hand, the two Vs overlap, forming a sort of W). Therefore the opposite (abbasso – down with) is sometimes written ^^.

Post navigation

7 thoughts on “Aggiungi un Posto a Tavola – An Italian Musical”

I am interested in your comments posted March 7th, 2007, regarding the availability of DVDs of ‘Aggiungi un posto a tavola’. You say they were issued with certain newspapers. Could you please tell me more about this? Were these DVDs free or were they sold?

As the author of the original book on which this musical is based it has never been mentioned to me that DVDs of it are available. I would rather like one myself!

Mr.Forrest: IÂ´m from Argentina and saw the musical based on your novel ,when it was performed in Buenos Aires.I was a child then,back in 1985 but was stunned by the plot and songs.I studied film adaptations when I graduated from high school and ever since looked forward to turning the play into a movie.I found the soundtrack in spanish,portugese and italian of course.But I could only find one song in the net of the english translation.It was “Pity”,sung by a girl Janet Mahoney.Is that right?I am really intrigued on how you managed to find english words for the ants song and “Notte da non dormire”.Would love to read the original novel as well. BEST REGARDS.Ignacio Martinez

No meaning at all. It’s an artifact of my recent move to new hosting – something happened when I exported the MySQL database of my WordPress blog. It’s weird because they don’t replace any other character, and they occur very inconsistently. I’m cleaning them up, slowly…

I have just stumbled across this article and was interested to read, for the first time, the comments of Ignacio Martinez, who said he would love to read the original novel. It has this year (2014) been published as an e-book in English and in Italian under its original title ‘After me, the deluge’ (Dopo di me il Diluvio.